The Working Group that is to advise the Bureau of Transportation Statistics on port performance statistics metrics had a memorable first meeting. The panel consisting of Federal agency and stakeholder representatives — appointments that nearly comply with congressional direction — includes proponents and opponents of the notion that the Federal government should collect port performance data. They, and others who had stayed clear of the 2015 congressional debate that concluded with the creation of the Port Performance Freight Statistics Program, part of the surface transportation FAST Act, voiced their views, doubts and questions at the inaugural meeting.

Part of the day’s program was designed to get participants on the same page. While some of them may never agree on why or what data should be collected they could at least start working from a certain understanding as to terminology, what a port looks like, and how terminals operate. It was the task of consultants Daniel Hackett (Hackett Associates) and Dan Smith (Tioga Group) to provide tutorials. It was a lot to absorb. Especially for those at the table who spend little, if any, time in the maritime world.

The hour that Dan Smith spoke could have been doubled considering the volume and value of the information he shared on terminal configurations, the diversity of metrics used in ports, and other pertinent details. If anything, the Working Group members could start to appreciate the challenge presented by the congressional mandate that USDOT collect data employing uniform metrics in a sector where even the term “ton” comes in different forms and meanings. A hundred or so commercial ports, and many more marine terminals, operate in the US. Uniformity may be inevitable but it may take a while to get there.

Several people in the room — representatives for the railroads, a port, and organized labor — questioned why collecting port data was even necessary. John Gray of the American Association of Railroads started, matter of factly. “Just because Congress says go collect data doesn’t make it a good idea.” It was a view likely not shared by Senate staff in the room.

The shippers in the room — National Retail Federation, Lowe’s and Home Depot, at the table, and agriculture exporters in audience — represented the interest sector most responsible for the creation of the new port performance program. Advocates for an answer to what happened on the West Coast and for the industry and longshore labor to answer for it. The shippers who won seats at the WorkinHg Group table explained their need for transparency and reliability but seemed not to want to be the oft-heard advocates in the room.

Labor did. The AFL-CIO, ILWU, and other union reps made clear their opposition to any data collection that oculd reflect on workforce performance. Inevitably, it would be used by others during contract talks, they explained. (Of course, everyone at the bargaining table — unions and management alike — would already have every potentially useful statistic at their disposal.) Besides, they said, better infrastructure is where the need is, implying that port data are not useful in showing where inadequate infrastructure contributes to port congestion.

They reminded folks who knew the legislative history, and informed those who did not, of the original Senate legislation — the Port Performance Act. Inspired, as it was, by the slowed cargo on the West Coast during the 2014-2015 talks, and by appeals from the cargo interests, the bill’s authors wanted to mandate more frequent reporting of port performance data to Washington around the time of collective bargaining.

Labor representatives did not fail to note that a shippers coalition letter to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, sent after the bill became law, urged the collection of monthly figures on container lifts, a key KPI on workforce productivity. Labor pointed to it as evidence that, even though provisions on specific metrics and collective bargaining did not make it into to law, the shippers were persisting in urging USDOT to secure data that could be used to create legal or political pressure against the workers’ interest.

The unions were aided in discouraging consideration of crane-related metrics when, later in the meeting, POLA’sGene Seroka and others said crane lift data was of questionable value outside of the terminal itself. As if to put a period on the issue, Lowe’s Rick Gabrielson said he does not care about the reporting of crane hours. Capacity is the issue.

Over the course of the day persons questioned the rationale for nationally collected port data but no one questioned the value of metrics used in addressing port terminal problems at the local level. Former Lowe’s executive Mike Mabry, now chair of MARAD’s Marine Transportation System National Advisory Committee, was one to ask how data would be used. He discouraged BTS collecting data just to have data. “You can drown in input metrics,” he said. What’s important is to know how the data would be used and then tailor a decision on metrics to that.

Congress told BTS to collect data that would help capture US port “capacity and throughput.” Port of Houston’sRoger Guenther asked rhetorically, and doubtfully, if private marine terminals would want to say what is their capacity. Alternatively, he said that a crucial metric for determining how well a port or terminal is functioning is how adequately it is staffed by Customs officers. Insufficient numbers of CBP inspection personnel contribute to terminal congestion and slowed throughput. Others concurred.

At a July 7, hearing the Port of Baltimore’sDavid Espie told House subcommittee members of the problems presented by inadequate Federal security support in the form of aging radiation portal monitors in need of replacement, unknown maintenance records, and overworked Customs officers.”CBP is very strapped,” said Espie. Low-level personnel work long hours at the RPMs and are “bored,” suggesting a morale issue.

At the BTS meeting the BCOs reiterated their statement of record, that there is no interest in comparing one port to another but rather a port’s improvement (or not) overtime. The railroads’ John Gray, experienced in working with industry numbers, observed that the intended use of collected data notwithstanding, once data is published it will be used by persons incorrectly if they would find that useful.

If there was something on which all folks at the table could agree it might have been that statistics can be helpful in bringing more investment, including Federal grants, to port-related infrastructure. Noting that in recent years ports have become eligible for Federal grants MARAD’s Lauren Brand said collecting port data would be helpful to convince policy makers that capacity requirements and other infrastructure needs warrant greater Federal investment. BTS’s Rolf Schmitt admitted that his agency knows the capacity of the highway system but has no knowledge of the American port system’s capacity. He could have added that some of the Republican bill’s wording came from the Obama Administration’s proposed Grow America Act to —

…authorize a port performance statistics program within the Bureau of Transportation Statistics to provide nationally consistent statistics on capacity and throughput for all maritime ports to assess performance for freight transportation planning and investment analysis; and require advice from major stakeholders who collect and use port information.

The other unavoidable fact is that BTS is under the gun to implement what Congress wrought in law. Former Massport executive director, Anne Aylward, managed well as meeting moderator. She patiently urged participants to “find areas of commonality” and “work with what is in the law now.” She invited the Working Group members, and those who were not at the table, to send, by August 1, initial ideas as to suitable uniform metrics and how the data could be collected.

The Working Group is to issue a final report to BTS by the December 4, statutory deadline. The respected statistical agency is faced with a challenge and must make its first report to Congress a month later. There’s no time to waste. Pbea

As the first draft of this piece was being put to page some small percentage of voters were practicing their citizenship at the polls. The prospects for the Democrats, as a whole, were not very good. Ten days later, and as I now refine this text, the field still is being cleared of Election Day debris. Not just the sloppily pinned signs on the road medians but prognosticators’ tattered reputations and a few shattered incumbents were strewn on the political landscape in need of reclaiming. By far more than the paid pollsters divined in the weeks before November 4, the Republicans were handed the reins in Congress and a number of State Houses. The party consolidated its control of the House and leapt into the majority in the Senate with at least 53 seats and a net gain of eight. The final count awaits a December conclusion in Louisiana where GOP prospects in the run-off are good.

Public dissatisfaction with government in Washington is close to universal but for reasons I will leave to others to explain the Republican Party benefited substantially more than its competition and that will keep them in power, especially at state level, for several years to come. As if speaking for his fellow Republicans across the country re-elected Gov. Sandoval (R-NV) said, “This is a night to savor.”

By the numbers, incumbent US Senate Republicans will be vulnerable in 2016…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The matter before us is the next two years of the 114th Congress.

This week the rank and file of both parties in both chambers opted to retain current leadership. Soon we will learn the names to inhabit chairmanships, ranking minority posts, and committee lists. Meanwhile, in the current lame duck session the legislature is expected produce appropriations to keep the government functioning through the fiscal year. They will decide whether the Keystone XL pipeline project should be started, and take up a few other must-pass items before bringing the 113th Congress to a close.

Long before Election Day the US-flag maritime community nervously eyed voter surveys because of what a possible Republican return to power in the Senate could mean. Now, the controlling party is known; how that majority will be reflected in maritime related legislation will be something to watch.

One can easily find Republican legislators who are considered friends of the US maritime industry, whether driven by interest in US-flag cargo preference policy, shipyard activity, the labor force, other sectors that benefit by existing policy, or just a sense of what a nation should say about its maritime capability, security, etc. But that doesn’t mean that the maritime community in Washington, DC was sanguine or unconcerned about the prospect of the GOP taking the lead in producing legislation. In fact, unions, shipyards, US flag operators and others with a stake in the status quo were in varying degrees of pre-election anxiety.

The community has been frustrated with the Obama Administration’s willingness to ease cargo preference requirements. Now, potentially as problematic, Republican legislators who, for philosophical or constituency reasons, have not been inclined to extend Ex-Im Bank authorization or fund cargo preference policy—both key issues for the US merchant marine—will have more influence in policy setting. Add to that the fact that congressional support for the Jones Act is lacking in some quarters where the marketplace is revered and shipper interests—including domestic petroleum producers—would exchange the US flag for lower vessel costs. Some ports hit hard by disruptive events and who need short term Jones Act waivers in order to manage logistics crises, may find some more receptive offices.

A few years ago Jones Act and US-flag interests started Maritime Industry Congressional Sail-In Day to lobby the Hill with a particular aim to educate legislators who are new to maritime issues. The old guard–those who recall there once was a House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, soon 20 years defunct—are nearly gone from Congress as a consequence of natural and electoral attrition. (The American maritime sector has suffered from attrition as well, with a reduced presence in international shipping and, in some respects, an aging Jones Act sector.)

More recent Republican additions to Capitol Hill are a decidedly more conservative population—some of them Libertarians and self-identified tea partiers—who are more market- and less government-oriented. They arrive in Washington with little knowledge of the American maritime tradition and even less of its policy and the rationale behind that policy. They read material from policy critics and, presumably, its advocates.

On the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee are Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) who, for example, have opposed reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank (“corporate welfare”) and could be in the mix to chair the subcommittee with jurisdiction over maritime policy. Veteran John McCain (R-AZ), the likely next chair of the Armed Services Committee, has a record of proposing the repeal of the Jones Act. Referring to a McCain quote in a Wall Street Journal blog, a union newsletter carries this heading: “Sen. John McCain Calls Jones Act’s National Security Benefits Laughable.”

Maybe change is coming, maybe not. If anything, there is a good chance we will see more jousting on US maritime policy. Pbea

This except from the opening of “A National Intermodal Shift” by W. Cassidy and J. Boyd of the Journal of Commerce, April 5, 2010:

The Obama administration is forming a national freight transportation policy that can be boiled down to one concept: Get more trucks off the roads.

Key officials are increasingly making it clear they want to move a larger percentage of the nation’s intercity freight by rail or water, to take pressure off congested and crumbling highways and to help improve the environment.

In a single sentence, Porcari described what appears to be the most sweeping change in a generation in the federal government’s approach to shipping and transportation, promising an ambitious and concerted effort to redirect the way freight flows through the country’s long-standing supply networks.

The JOC cover story is intriguing to the reform minded (and unwelcome to the road-minded). It builds on recent statements made by DOT officials in interviews and Hill hearings. The view that is emerging from the Secretary’s office is a policy perspective that adheres less to modal stovepipes (and whether there is a pot of money devoted to a stovepipe) and more to intermodal efficiency. It first asks if a project would provide public benefit and secondarily whether the infrastructure is in public or private hands. Under Secretary for Policy Roy Kienitz testified at a March 17 House hearing. He opened by outlining the principles that are guiding the Administration’s developing transportation policy.

Secretary [Ray] LaHood has decided to focus on five key strategic goals as priorities in our national transportation policy – safety, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, livability, and environmental sustainability. Our policy on freight transportation grows out of our focus on these five key strategic goals. We want a freight policy that will allow us to target our investments on projects that are most effective in allowing us to achieve these goals.

Later in the statement Roy Kienitz said this:

Whether freight infrastructure is publicly-owned or privately-owned, it produces a mix of public and private benefits. Shippers and other customers of the freight transportation system derive private benefits from freight transportation, and the Nation as a whole derives public benefits from our freight transportation infrastructure, whether that infrastructure is publicly or privately owned. Freight that moves on more energy-efficient modes – whether the right-of-way is publicly or privately owned – enhances our energy independence and reduces adverse climate change effects. Freight that moves on a lower-cost right-of-way – whether publicly or privately owned – enhances our economic competitiveness by preserving capital for hiring and additional capital investments. The most sensible freight transportation policy will be one that directs transportation infrastructure investment to where it will have the greatest impact on our desired outcomes, regardless of whether those modes are publicly or privately owned, or whether they have their own source of trust fund revenues.

Given the opportunity to initiate a multimodal grant program DOT is applying principles like transportation efficiency and public benefit. It explains over $300 million in TIGER grants going to expanding double stack rail corridor capacity and to port improvements.

These are not your typical Federally supported projects. Then again, what we are starting to hear out of 1200 New Jersey Avenue is not your typical transportation policy. Pbea

Additional investment in highways, transit, rail, aviation and water. The President is calling for new investments in a wide range of infrastructure, designed to get out the door as quickly as possible while continuing a sustained effort at creating jobs and improving America’s productivity.

Support for merit-based infrastructure investment that leverages federal dollars. The Administration supports financing infrastructure investments in new ways, allowing projects to be selected on merit and leveraging money with a combination of grants and loans as was done through the Recovery Act’s TIGER program.

The second paragraph is a reference to the over-subscribed TIGER grant program for which a broad range of transportation projects are eligible and awardees will be announced no later than February. The administration has shown an affinity for “merit-based” grants (as opposed to congressional earmarks and formula funding). USDOT loves it because it puts the Secretary in the position to judge what projects are worth funding and to apply White House principles such as emission reduction.

With so little in the way of detail we might infer from the first paragraph that the Marine Transportation System may not be as much as part of the next jobs bill as it was in ARRA signed in February. Does the Obama administration include port or marine transportation as eligible for job stimulus funding? Especially for the “out the door” quickly category?

Certainly connecting roads and rail are valuable elements of the MTS but when the president’s proposal for infrastructure funding uses the term “water” it may not mean maritime. I think it means water and sewer infrastructure, which would appeal greatly to capital starved municipal governments but do little for marine highway and other MTS infrastructure needs.

Prior references by Congress and the administration to funding maritime related projects as part of ARRA used the word “port“ along with rail, highway and transit projects. No mention of port or maritime in the White House statement or the president’s remarks at the Brookings Institution today.

That said, port/maritime projects were eligible for TIGER grants, which the White House appears to want to continue. But almost by definition TIGER grant money doesn’t flow in a matter of couple months. The first grant announcements won’t be made until close to a year after the funds were appropriated by Congress in February 2009. Indeed, I’m told that White House officials said after the president’s remarks that some part of the infrastructure element of the s announcement today may not be intended to pour money into the system over the short term.

The White released an outline today. The administration and Congress will put flesh on the bones and maybe once the House and Senate take up legislation early next year ports and marine transportation, including capital needs for marine highway development, will be eligible.

The Secretary has spoken about the need to understand how marine transportation can be better integrated with the surface transportation system. He has identified marine highway development–and the capacity it would bring to domestic freight transportation system–as an administration objective.

The MARAD-funded TTI modal comparison report is very helpful in understanding how barge transportation compares to rail and road. Does that tell us all we need to know? After all, there’s more to domestic marine freight movement than tugs and barges. More to the point, there’s more in store for coastwise and inland services than what is on the water today. How would the planned, new Ro-Ro and container vessels compare to rail and truck? Policy makers need complete 3-mode data to make complete policy decisions.

The freight logistics industry has pointed to the lack of a national freight policy. The Freight Stakeholders Coalition announced in May its suggested “platform” for a freight policy. As the platform suggests the policy should “foster operational and environmental efficiencies in goods movement.” The platform also calls for the establishment of a “multi-modal freight office” in the Office of the Secretary (OST) in the interest of advancing freight mobility.

A multi-modal view that is not hampered by an old view of how transportation works is what is called for today. Greater fuel efficiency isn’t an ideological issue. It’s very much an economic matter to business and a bi-partisan policy matter as we understand the country’s interest in energy security. Likewise we see environmental issues–emissions, particularly–becoming more of a business and policy concern.

That’s why the developers of the GIFT model are attracting interest. Dr. James Corbett of the University of Delaware and Dr. James Winebrake of the Rochester Institute of Technology–with the support of USDOT, MARAD and others–are developing the Geospatial Intermodal Freight Transportation (GIFT) model. GIFT enables the fuel and emission comparison of modes for specific freight routes. In other words, logistics planners soon will have a tool that goes beyond the one-sided “carbon calculator” analysis available on some rail and marine transportation company websites.

Corbett and Winebrake add further value with their IF-TOLD Mitigation Framework that they describe as “A Context for Mode Shifting Discussions.”

Some good work is being done to provide more information for making modal decisions and enable the development of smarter freight policy. With any luck the policy makers will determine what multi-modal information is available as well as what additional information is needed before deciding on a long overdue national freight policy and the successor to SAFETEA-LU. Pbea

In a story yesterday by Bob Edmonson of the Journal of Commerce the governor acknowledged, “In one sense a delay is hurtful, but in another sense the delay would give us a chance to look at new ideas, and build new concepts, and try to get a bill that will really revolutionize.” Rendell spoke at a American Road and Transportation Builders Association conference.

The governor apparently assumes that the Senate and Administration will succeed in getting an 18 month extension of the expiring SAFETEA-LU. Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) on the House side doesn’t want to put off major revenue and policy decisions that long.

On September 23rd when the House debated, and passed, a three month extension, through December, Steven LaTourette (R-OH) agreed that action is needed now. His House Republican leadership opted to object to a prospective gas tax hike, which was not even on the table, rather than identify themselves with the need to maintain highway and transit programs. LaTourette stood in the well–exasperated, looking at his own party members–and said, “I am constantly amazed at how both parties are able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” He foresees his party in the months ahead fighting a major transportation bill in the cause for low taxes.

In a recession the desire to improve the economic environment for employment is genuine and politically vital. It’s easy to understand the impatience. Oberstar and others want to move as quickly as possible to produce a 5-year, $450 Bn transportation bill. Then again, there is that knotty problem of how to pay for it, as noted in this prior posting.

Whatever other thinking may be behind Governor Rendell’s frank remarks to the “road builders” he makes an important point. On the surface is this one: Jim Oberstar may be ready to move a bill but the Senate and administration are not. But Rendell seems to go deeper than that. Crafting a major bill, with its inherently difficult revenue issues and bearing the weight of expectations that this one must break new policy ground, will take more time.

Rendell is right. After reaching the pinnacle that is SAFETEA-LU we don’t need another “mediocre” bill. The hearing record of recent years is loaded with testimony calling on Congress to not repeat past mistakes and, as the governor put it, to produce “a bill that will really revolutionize.” Freight policy, high-speed rail, transportation policy in a new energy/environment policy framework, performance measures, marine highways, livable communities, and the broader question raised by the Secretary as to how to integrate the MTS more fully into surface transportation policy. These are just some of the policy challenges.

The Oberstar bill is a clear step in that direction. And while the Senate committees have been plotting their TEA contributions the administration can’t say the same. The White House and the Department of Transportation, which remains immersed in implementing the economic stimulus package with its multi-billion dollar new programs, are nowhere near ready to be a full participant in the crucial dialogue on next generation surface transportation program and policy. It will take more time. Pbea

Envy is a perfectly serviceable starting point for developing national transportation policy. Our new high-speed rail program is an apt example. It’s a Euro-inspired, greenish gleam in a candidate’s eye made billion-dollar real by our new president and the stimulus package. While we wait for our first bullet-ride to Disney World or Albany let’s consider what the national transportation policies of other countries are accomplishing. We will start with our friends to the north who want Canada to be the continent’s gateway. To Memphis.

The Canada’s Gateways program is impressive. Watching a visiting transportation official give a presentation on it is like listening to a nice kid tell of his elegant plan to steal your lunch. As he speaks it sinks in that you will go hungry that day; you slowly grasp your trumpet case to make sure he doesn’t walk away with it also. The adult response is to admire the strategic thinking and implementation…while watching one’s lunch walk away.

And here’s something to make you reach for the pink stuff: the still young Port of Prince Rupert just posted a 124% increase in containers (1st half 2009 over 1st half 2008) in one of the worst global economies ever. That it only handled under 100,000 TEUs in these 6 months is of little consolation to US Pacific ports who face an efficient rail corridor to the north and a new canal corridor to open in Panama.

“Coherent action requires a systems-based approach, and real partnerships with provincial governments and the private sector. Success will depend upon how well the key players — public and private — coalesce around a coherent vision. A key factor in the successful development of the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative was the extent to which a stakeholder- driven consensus had taken shape over a number of years. …. Actions should complement current market-oriented transportation policies, with governments creating a positive climate for private investment in gateway infrastructure, while safeguarding the public interest.”

The Marine Transportation System National Advisory Council was established in May 2000 to serve and advise the Secretary of Transportation. Its public and private sector stakeholder members have, for the most part, served three year terms. (This writer served a term on the council and remains involved.)

The MTSNAC was there in 2001 to provide guidance to the Secretary on the very practical considerations pertaining to cargo flow when the Feds stood up security measures and new law after the Towers fell. It prepared instructive presentations on global logistics with the intent to explain a little understood system to Washington policy makers. It produced recommendations for the Secretary as to how new government policies and private sector actions can result in greater efficiency to goods movement.

This year the future of MTSNAC is under consideration. Will it be extended beyond 2009? Will it be reconstituted with changes? Will it be terminated? Those are options that have been suggested by various parties at USDOT. The thinking in the Secretary’s Office on this may become known this week when MTSNAC meets here in Washington. Perhaps its last meeting.

This much is evident. Goods movement and the global supply chain are playing increasingly significant roles in the U.S. economy and have exposed where our national transportation system, including the MTS, warrants improvement and high level attention. As such the leadership of USDOT would continue to benefit by having an advisory panel whose members include the non-Federal agencies and industries that are stewards, service providers and users of the marine transportation system. Pbea